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THE PERIODIC TABLE OF CYCLING
Balance: An invisible,
fragile, powerful and incalculable force. Like love.
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Momentum: Too little
is boring and makes you
apt to topple, but too
much is dangerous and
makes you apt to
shatter. Like lust.
Wine: Italy,
France, California.
Coincidence?
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By
bicycling
staff and contributors
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Gear: Gloves, helmets,
goggles, pads—warriors
need their armaments, and
kids need their costumes.
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I
n the 1860s and ’70s, while charting elements according to
atomic weight, Russian chemist Dmitry Mendeleyev noticed a
pattern: Elements with similar properties grouped up in columns.
The blanks in this revolutionary table left a map for future smart
people to fill with undiscovered elements. So we thought, hey, if the
Periodic Table of Elements is good enough to explain the mysteries
of being, it’s good enough for cycling. Here’s our take on the most
essential elements of our great sport. We tried to list only those absolutely fundamental pieces—for instance, we believe bikes will always
have wheels, but maybe not chains. And while a future without bikes
of steel and carbon fiber might seem unimaginable, we’re big thinkers
and didn’t rule out the day when a bike made of pure magnetic (or
whatever) force eliminates the need for solid material. In other words,
we’ve created the chart with such preternatural wisdom that in the
year 4012 cyclists will refer to our Table in wonder and ask, “How
did those guys know snot would always be so funny?”
For Mo
re Fre
Down
bicycl loads, go e
ing.co
m/freteo
.
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Campagnolo:
Shifting by
Giorgio Armani.
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Wind: Heads, hell.
Tails, heaven.
Jerks: Angry balding guy in a
ragtop, yokels with an empty
six in the bed—or the socially
maladroit roadie who disapproves of your shoe color.
Gary Fisher: Pops embodies all that’s good and
bad—and marketable—
about mountain biking.
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Crash: Going down
makes staying up
sweeter.
Climb: Your offering to the
gods of pain.
Void: Spit, snot, pee, carbon
dioxide, sweat and the tops
of gel packets. What kind of
great sport is it in which
discarding only one of these
on the roll is bad form?
Road: Our surface sounds
like the past tense of our
action. Perfect.
Life: Yes, dear, getting that
gallon of milk is more important than riding. Today.
Ailments: From road rash
to saddle sores to achy
knees, Nietzsche had
it exactly right.
Eddy Merckx: If he
didn’t exist, it would be
necessary to invent him.
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Clean: Wheels on the
ground, feet on the pedals,
you on a roll.
Descend: When
the gods of pain
reward your suffering.
Home workouts: Rollers, trainers and polyester shirts. Don’t
let them be found in your
basement after your death.
Cold: It’s what the bank
thermometer will tell you it
is, while you’re sweating.
Dogs: Remember, you
don’t have to outride the
dog, just one friend.
Shimano: Shifting by Zen.
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Gyms: Therapeutic when
taken medicinally, but toxic
in large doses.
Convenience
store: How did
cyclists kill the
bonk before 7-Eleven?
Traffic: Hazardous, scary,
smelly, dirty—and sometimes slower than you.
Kooks: From recumbent
Moonies to anti-bike-lane
advocates, you know who
you are. Wait a minute, you
don’t—there’s the problem.
Suffering: The hated,
feared, ultimate enemy—
right up to the point where
it becomes your old friend.
Sweat: The stuff that drips
out when you squeeze a big
bunch of speed.
Wool: You know
what lives in
sheep’s clothing.
Jersey pockets: Is there
anything as functional, simple,
iconic and inevitable? What’s
that? The Chipwich? Oh, yeah.
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Oxygen: You
breathe it, burn
it and battle it.
Snot: That ain’t mucus
leaving your body, it’s weakness. Don’t ask us why it
exits via the nose.
Lungs: Make it all possible by
linking oxygen to chemistry—
but they don’t work so well
when they’re coming up
your throat.
Frame: This is the
bike. Components
are clothes.
Wheels: The real
circles of life.
Race: Whether it’s against
other cyclists with number
plates, a leaf blowing in
the wind or a coming
storm, we all do it.
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Pedals: You touch your bike
with your feet, hands and
butt—imagine if your hands
and butt had to
do 110 rpm.
Legs: The most powerful,
sexy body part not covered
by spandex.
Measure: Miles, heartbeats,
watts, grams, number
of friends burned off the
friendly Saturday ride—
we quantify all we do.
Corner: The instant
where skill trumps
fitness.
Recover: Forget speed,
watts, LT, max and the next
800 performance criteria.
If you can talk five seconds
after a sprint or topping a
peak, you’re fit.
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Sprint: Speed
stripped to its core.
Pack: Like lions, beers
and supermodels, hanging
together increases the
danger, fun and beauty.
Bike shop: Market,
church, bar, gym, home.
And it smells cool, too.
Bonk: It’s like balancing your
bank account by
bouncing a check.
Moab: How did geology
know mountain biking was
just 3.9 billion years away?
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Velodrome: The
oval of purity.
Dave Stohler:
“He’s never
tired. He’s never
miserable.”
Fuel: It makes you go fast.
Its more palatable form,
food, is the reward for
going fast.
Espresso: Doppio, please.
Heart: Pumps
blood, enables triumph.
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Fast guy (or gal):
There’s always
one ahead of you.
Lactic acid: If hippies
had put this on their blotters,
the 60s would’ve
really changed things.
Butt: Properly
muscled, lets you
spank the road.
Stretchy, clingy apparel:
Cripes, we wish spandex
(and its future incarnations)
didn’t work.
Shave: Aerodynamics,
healing, massage—yeah,
yeah. It’s narcissistic autoeroticism involving wet
skin, slick gels and razors.
No wonder we like it.
Commute: Play on
the way to work.
Drop: Leave your nemesis or
best friend behind—divine.
Lose the friendly couple on
their first club ride—dumb.
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Suspension:
Humankind’s victory over washboard.
Jump: More powerful than
gravity—for an instant (that
feels like an eternity).
Chase: From
Cyrano, to Spot, to us, the pursuit’s
the thing.
Draft: The moment where
even those of us who don’t
spend time in wind tunnels
understand physics.
Fix: Three words sum up all
you need to know about bike
repair: Never. Walk. Home.
Off-road: Apply the perfect
human invention to dirt, rock,
wood and other primal surfaces,
and the contrast is magic.
Bike path: From the functional to the idyllic, a route
especially sized for our sport.
Water: You ever try
running a bike without
lube? Drink up.
Lube: Ever try running your
body without water? Drip,
spray and coat regularly.
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Beer: Pretty simple—if
you can’t ride the next
day, you had too much.
Rain: It really, really, really sucks.
Until you’re wet.
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element groups
The principles
The liquids
The solids
The actions
The environments
The obstacles
The icons
Italy: That feeling after a
perfect ride on a perfect day
with your best riding friends?
Every day, here, pal. Every
freaking day. With marinara.